Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The ultimate brag thread

Another dinosaur brag. While a friend was visiting, my son let out a loud squawk.

Me: Are you being a pterodactyl?

DS17mo: (A little indignant) No! A pteranodon!

Lovemydd, Awesome video of WWTP. I work closely with municipal WWTP's. I last toured it with a group of Engineers and Mayor's it made it more interesting listening to the questions that they asked. I would say that the actual operators may have been at the bottom of their class, however, I would say that the individuals higher up or involved with stormwater and engineering are certainly gifted adults.

Last summer, my DS5 designed on paper a wastewater reclamation system for our camping trailer. He has not toured the wwtp before but he already knew about micro-organisims. It was a very thorough draft with grey water and black water seperated systems.

I have to brag somewhere about my DS7 learning to play guitar becuase he won't let me talk about it to his grandparents or anyone else for that matter.

He has wanted to learn to play the guitar for the past 2 years. I convinced him that no one would ask him to play and he would not have to sing at all, ever. He is very much an introvert. He agreed and we found a wonderful teacher.

He has been to 2 lessons (I know, a premature brag even) but I can tell by the look on his face this will be something he will love for the rest of his life. It was the same look the first time out on ice skates of complete determination.

His teacher told him he has never had a student catch on so quickly and he has added extra things to his lessons. That statement could be just lip service from the teacher but he doesn't strike me as the type.

Best of all, I haven't had to ask my son to practice, he actually wants to practice.

A small but significant brag for me

Aiden (6) struggles with writing (we suspect stealth dyslexia at this stage). Today he asked me for a spelling test like his best friend does at school.

He could spell "pyroclastic" on his own as well as "igneous"

(all all fairness he also wrote "mamga" and "roc". It made me proud and made me giggle all at the same time, and I knew this would be the only place I could openly share

So proud of DD today- I saw she only got 2 problems done in her session (she said because they were so hard) so I replayed it, and this it what I found! Similar to the type of problem she struggled with in the 2nd grade level, except she didn't cry or call me in for help at all. Maybe because this one seems to be set up a lot more clearly than the previous ones and even marks the parts of the text to be used in setting up each equation. For DD that seems to have made all the difference! Not bad for a Kindergartner I must say.

DD3.5 asked me a few days back "why do we need negative numbers, I mean numbers less than zero?" (she knows this concept because I threaten her with minus points from Santa if she doesn't do xyz).I said because smetimes we have to give more than we have, so we end up owing. Negative numbers help us keep track of how much we owe. For example, if you had 3 apples and I asked you for 5, then what? Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, I got it. I would owe you 2. So the asnwer is -2." Since then, she has been playing with the concept of negative numbers in her pretend play. I heard her asking her teddy the answer to 10-1Million. Lol!
Another brag, she decided to play the role of both mama and baby bear in Goldilocks story that she forced her dad to do the dada bear role for. She was hilarious modulating her voice and delivery for the two characters. I am moving to Hollywood!

as always reading these awesome stories makes me grin

nothing "huge" ... just something that made me feel good for DS3 last week. We had his 3rd Birthday party and before the party a lot of people asked me what to give him since they already know about his high functioning autism diagnosis and they know he is not interested in many "normal" age appropriate toys, so I suggested Lego blocks or Encyclopedias for kids and that kind of thing. I also asked them not to be disappointed if at first he pays no attention to the gifts (he spent Christmas gift opening time by playing Android games on my phone and never ONCE looked up at what he got).

So, we had the party, he was in a good mood, tolerating all the kids, running around, our happy boy and I figured lets open the gifts. One was Lego Duplo Numbers train ... he wanted to open the box right away! WIN #1!!! ... then he got to the books and he pointed to the first one and read out loud "My first atlas" ... most people's jaws dropped . A lot of our friends don't really believe me when I say he started reading around 2.5 years old (And I don't usually talk about it. Except when it comes up during conversation) but this was so spontaneous, there was no denying it So, satisfaction #1 - DS3 proved himself to everyone there #2 - he loved his gifts and most importantly #3 - my child who was diagnosed with Autism 2 months ago and we were told to teach him to communicate with pictures and expect him to be in special Autism classes is now willing to show what he's capable of to OTHERS (until this point I only knew what he can do by mainly sneaking up on him and looking over his shoulder). Overall, it was an AWESOME DAY!!!

Happy birthday to the awesome mini MK-13!

Sorry folks, I'm pushing my monthly quota, I know. There must be something in our water these days...

At dinner last night, DS (17mo) started singing the alphabet song spontaneously mid-bite. The funny thing is he's only ever heard the letter names about 4 times at his music class when we sing the alphabet song as part of a large repertoire. I've been actively trying to avoid letter names otherwise so he can learn phonics later. After a bit of investigation, I discovered he can visually identify the alphabet by letter name and phonics. That's news to me.

Now I wonder how long he's known the alphabet. Apparently I have a stealthy observer who ferrets away new knowledge and masters it internally before springing it on his unsuspecting parents. I guess I should be especially mindful of my Ps and Qs now...